by Cindy Gerard
Talk about a hard lesson learned. Thanks to Garrett's suggestions and her overblown memories, she'd actually been thinking about Clay in terms of other than getting even and paying back. She'd been thinking in terms of romance and attraction and—well, it didn't matter what else. It didn't matter that Clay and Veronica were no longer a couple, either. She wasn't thinking that way anymore.
The upshot was that she'd learned one colossal, heart-wrenching lesson. He had the power to make her feel vulnerable. For that she would never forgive him. For that matter, she'd never forgive herself for letting it happen. And she would never let him see that less-than-invincible side of her again. Add to that the way he'd been acting the past two weeks, and she had enough motivation to keep things in perspective through the next millennium.
It was going to take both of them to level the playing field again, however, and he wasn't pulling his weight. She'd finally decided that the way to get back to business was to pick up where they'd veered off course. For the past week she'd tried to needle him, outmaneuver him and generally irritate the heck out of him. That, after all, was status quo.
The man, however, wouldn't give her the satisfaction of status quo. What he gave her instead was the repeated sight of his neatly packed Wranglers walking away from her. And when he wasn't walking away, he was avoiding her like she carried the doomsday virus.
It did not sit well. As the building project progressed and she saw minor adjustments that she wanted to rile him about, he'd bite back his anger, neatly refer her to Garrett and exit stage left.
She'd gotten his message. Loud and strong. He wasn't just blowing her off the way he usually did when she annoyed him. It was more like he didn't even have it in him to feel annoyed. Like it wasn't worth his effort. And somehow, his total lack of emotion was more disconcerting than if he'd bellowed at her for being a pest. She felt uncomfortably adrift because of it.
Well, she'd had enough. She had far more interesting things to do than wonder what his new attitude was all about. And she would never make the mistake again of letting that pretty package make her heart or her head go all mushy.
So she'd made a mistake. She'd let Garrett's suggestion, a lot of sensual memory, and an itsy-bitsy case of melancholy head her in the absolute wrong direction.
She was over it. It was past and her head was back on straight for the present. He needed to get his back on straight, too.
That's why she'd come looking for him today. To get right in his face and force him to prove to her and to himself that it was back to business-as-usual between them. She was willing to be tormented, bullied and badgered. She was also willing to be the tormentor, bullier and badgerer. What she was not willing to be was ignored. Not by him. Not one minute longer.
Marching up to the base of the scaffolding, she shaded her eyes against the sun's glare with the shield of her hand. "Clay—can I talk to you?"
He quickly covered his surprise at seeing her there by sparing her a bored glance before going back to his hammering. "You might not have noticed. I'm a little busy."
"I won't keep you long," she sputtered, immediately incensed by his ready dismissal. "And I really need to talk to you."
With a deep, weary breath, he turned, stared impassively down at her, then reluctantly hooked his hammer in a loop on his tool belt. "So talk."
She expelled a long, tolerant sigh and stayed the course. "Could you please come down here? Five minutes. That's all I need, and I'd just as soon not shout my way through this conversation."
Again he favored her with a vacant look before he tugged off his hard hat and wiped the sweat from his brow with a swipe of his forearm. A long moment passed before he finally gave in and climbed down the scaffolding.
His heavy work boots had no sooner hit the ground with a little puff of dust than he reached for a thermal water jug. He unscrewed the lid and tipped it back.
She didn't want to be, she sure as the world shouldn't be, but she was mesmerized by the sight. Sweat trickled down his temples and neck, matting the hair at his nape in spiky, damp curls. The taut cords in his throat convulsed with every swallow as he downed half the contents in long, thirsty gulps. A heavy dusting of dark curls covered his broad chest then narrowed to a thin silken arrow beyond the washboard leanness of his belly before disappearing under the low-slung waist of his jeans.
The sight of him that way, all messy and sexy and sweaty, had her fidgeting with her hair like a schoolgirl and working up a thirst of her own.
"Five minutes," he said after setting aside the Thermos. With a glance at his watch, he propped gloved fists impatiently on his hips and waited.
His clipped, gruff reminder was all it took to snap her out of her little erotic tailspin and match his no-nonsense glare.
"Many thanks for the audience, oh great one whose time is more precious than gold," she muttered, overplaying the dutiful supplicant to his superior, put-upon male.
He gave her a slow, bored blink. "You want to talk or smart off? And now you're down to four and a half minutes."
Okay. So an adult exchange was out of the question. She'd improvise despite Garrett's warnings that ever since the party following the variety show, Clay had been as touchy as a rattler roused from his hidey-hole. Accepting that he was in one of his moods today, she got straight to the point. And straight to the business of riling him out of his calm, controlled aloofness.
Lucky for her, she knew the perfect way to go about it. "I think there was a little misunderstanding on the blueprints," she said baldly.
His blue eyes momentarily darkened with deadly malice before he tamped down on his temper and leveled her a dispassionate look. "A misunderstanding? And that would be a misunderstanding on whose part?"
"Yours?" she suggested, baiting him with a wide, innocent smile.
His jaw clenched reflexively, temporarily. "Let me see if I've got this right. I drew the blueprints and yet you figure I don't understand them."
While his calculated calm was underscored with irritation, his mild reaction was a little more unsettling than she'd like to admit. And a little harder to deal with than the yelling she'd been working for. Hoping her discomfort didn't show, she shifted her wandering T-shirt back onto her shoulders, crossed her arms over her chest, let them drop, crossed them again. "Well, I think it's more a matter of you didn't understand how I visualized things."
He closed his eyes, tightened his lips, then shook his head in disbelief. "Then—and please correct me if I'm wrong," he said, his words suddenly dripping sarcasm, "wouldn't that mean that you misunderstood something?"
"Regardless," she said, shrugging off the accuracy of his logic, "this is not quite the way I had envisioned the setup."
Very slowly, very deliberately, he raised his hand and rubbed at the spot above his left eye where she'd noticed a frenzied and frantic little twitching had begun.
"We talked about this, Maddie. I believe we talked about it a lot. In fact, I was very specific. I told you up front—several times—that if you wanted changes, you needed to make them in the planning stage—not the construction stage."
"I realize that," she said, feeling her confidence build now that his carefully modulated voice had escalated ever so slightly, "and I appreciate your stand on that issue, but—"
"Hold it right there. There are no buts. In case you hadn't noticed, the entire building is framed up and the roof and exterior walls are in place."
"And looking really, really good, by the way," she interjected in a tone so deliberately placating it guaranteed a rise in his body temperature. "The exterior is great! Fantastic. It's just that there are a few minor adjustments on the interior that need to be made."
"A few—minor adjustments." He'd raised his big hands and crossed them heavily over his chest. His chin jutted belligerently toward her. And, if she didn't miss her guess, his jaws were now clenched so tightly the enamel on his teeth was in danger of being ground to powder.
"Just a few," she assured him, trying a smile
that was about as effective at pouring a thimbleful of water on a blazing grass fire. "And I'm sure Garrett wouldn't think any of them would be a very big deal."
"Oh, well—" he waved a hand through the air "—if you're so sure Garrett wouldn't have a problem, why didn't you talk to him?"
"Because he said I needed to talk to you."
His expression was as hard as his hammer. "Fine. Now we've talked. No changes. I'm going back to work."
Then he turned back toward the scaffolding, leaving her all revved up and no one to snipe at.
This was not the way it was supposed to work. He was supposed to rant and rave, and she was supposed to yell right back and then everything would get back to normal.
He thought he was just going to walk away? Not in this lifetime. They'd been that far from a good old-fashioned shouting match, and she was primed for action.
"Just like that?" she exclaimed, snagging his arm and stopping him. "You won't even listen to what I want changed?"
He glared from her face to the hand clutching his arm. She felt the burn of both his skin, hot under her fingers, and his eyes, blazing under hooded brows.
"Just like that." The leather of his work gloves was soft and supple as he pried her fingers from his arm. "It's only fair, don't you think, since you obviously didn't listen to me when I told you there would be no changes once we got started."
"Oh, for heaven's sake. You'd think I was asking you to rebuild the White House. All I want is a minor—"
"You signed a contract," he said, cutting her off.
"Yeah, I did. I signed a contract to pay you a lot of money to build a gallery for me. Those are hard-earned dollars, and they ought to buy me a little latitude."
She wasn't sure when she'd started shouting or when he'd lost his carefully modulated control and started shouting back. She wasn't even sure when their discussion had escalated from baiting to battling and her own temper had gotten the best of her. She only knew it had. And his snarling reply shoved her over the edge to hornet's-nest mad. And hot damn, it felt good.
"How's this for latitude?" he barked, completely forgetting he wasn't supposed to let her get to him. "You want changes? Here's a big one. I quit. Now you can go hire yourself a new contractor to make the other ones for you."
That skidded her to an abrupt stop. But only for a second. "Oh, no you don't. I hired you to do the job and that's who's going to do it."
He lowered his head to within inches of hers. "Then get out of my face."
"Or what?" she shot back.
He set that impossible granite jaw and glared through narrowed eyes. "Or you'll be sorry that you didn't."
"Was that a threat?" she snapped, right on his heels when he turned again to climb back up the scaffold. "That sounded like a threat."
His booted foot hit the first ladder rung. "That works out real nice, then, because that's exactly what it was."
"Oh, that is really rich. The big bad cowboy is threatening the little woman. Well, come on, then, tough guy. If it makes you feel better, give it your best shot. What's it gonna be? You want to punch me out? Maybe blacken my—"
She never finished her taunt. He spun around and came after her so fast she yelped, then nearly tripped over her own feet trying to scurry away.
He wasn't about to let her go anywhere. Snagging her by both shoulders, he dragged her up against him so hard that the words and the breath whooshed out of her with one sharp, involuntary gasp.
"How about I just shut your mouth instead?"
"Wh-what do you think you're doing?" she stammered, wondering if she'd pushed him too far.
"I'm giving you what you asked for. Exactly what you asked for," he snarled as he knotted a gloved fist in her hair and pressed her back against an outside wall. "And don't think—not for one minute—that you didn't."
A trickle of arousal dovetailed with fear and inched down her spine. There was hostility in the eyes that threatened her, intent in the hard set of his mouth. And there was anger, unleashed and unrepentant in the hard crush of the body that pressed her deeper against the building.
But above it all, simmering like the heated waters of a thermal pool, bubbling like the cauldron of a warlock's brew, was something much more volatile: arousal. Pure. Primitive. Dangerous. As reckless as the wild thunder of her heart. As stunning as the storm brewing in his eyes as he lowered his head and slanted his mouth over hers.
She tried to scream out a protest. To deny that this was happening. To remind him, for heaven's sake, that this was not what he was supposed to be doing.
He was supposed to be mad, yes. Like old times. Like comfortable old times when they'd snipe and volley and both of them would feel triumphant and ticked off at the same time.
He was not supposed to kiss her. He most definitely was not supposed to kiss her like she was the saving drink of water to a man dying of thirst. And he was absolutely not supposed to alternately gentle then ravage her with hungry bites and teasing nips and dizzying sensual forays inside her mouth with his tongue.
And she, she was positively not supposed to melt like licorice under a summer sun and let him do it.
But he did. And she did until she was stunned into acquiescence, seduced into responding when he groaned from deep in his throat and took her under again. And then again.
With a surrendering sigh, she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed herself against his heat and rode with the sultry crush of chest to breast, teeth to tongue, heartbeat to heartbeat.
On a peripheral level she was aware of the breeze stirring the dust beneath their feet and lifting the curls around her face. Of the sunlight infusing the shadows of the scaffolding and lending its baking heat to the blaze of the fire he'd ignited. She was aware of the unforgiving wall of her gallery at her back, of the unyielding male body pinning her there, of his scent, his sweat, and an anger that had transmuted to a dark, carnal craving.
It was the cat calls that finally brought her back from that sharp, sweet edge of desire. It was the applause and the look of pure, male dominance on his face as he slowly pulled away from her that reminded her where she was, what he'd done, and reloaded her anger like the slam of a shell in the chamber of a shotgun.
The building crew had not only been an appreciative audience for his little show of male supremacy but they'd witnessed her bending to his will. Desire dove beneath humiliation, but she'd be damned if she'd let him see it.
Blinking back tears, she stared him straight in the eye and drew her arm back for a blow she hoped would knock him into next week. "You son of a—"
With maddening ease, he snagged her wrist mid-swing and twisted her arm behind her back.
"Temper, temper, Matilda," he taunted, then hauled her up into his arms and marched across the lot. "When are you ever going to learn that temper of yours buys you nothing but trouble?"
"Put me down." She ground out the words one caustic syllable at a time.
"With pleasure," he replied just as acidly.
Then he dumped her without apology or remorse into a wheelbarrow full of wet cement.
She gasped then sucked in a strangled breath as the thick, cold mix oozed around her like quicksand.
"Don't bother firing me," he added as an afterthought as she sat on her butt, waist-deep in the mucky gray sludge, her mouth and her eyes wide open in disbelief. "I quit."
And then he left her to the wary but amused stares of the crew while she hurled handfuls of sloppy concrete and a string of blistering curses at his departing back.
* * *
Chapter 4
« ^ »
"It's gotten out of hand, Clayton." Maya James Bradford, perched on the corner of Garrett's desk, frowned at her middle son with typical mother's concern. "You and Maddie have been at each other for years, but that stunt you pulled yesterday…" She shook her head in dismay. The end of her thought may have remained unspoken, but her message came across loud and clear.
Clay scratched his jaw and walked to the window. Sh
e was right, of course. This business with Maddie had gotten out of hand. He'd been cursing himself for a fool ever since his little performance on the building site yesterday.
Not that he regretted dumping her into the cement. She'd had that coming. She'd been spoiling for a fight and he'd given her one. What he'd regretted was what had happened just before that.
He still couldn't believe he'd kissed her. Publicly. Passionately. And he'd liked it. A lot. That's the part he was sorry about. He'd been struggling to shake off the effects of that kiss ever since.
When he realized his mother was still waiting for an explanation and no other defense was forthcoming, he mumbled a surly, "She started it," then realized how childish he sounded.
Maya rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. Will you listen to yourself? You sound like a six-year-old. Next you'll be accusing her of stealing your candy."
From his seat behind, his desk, Garrett tried unsuccessfully to camouflage a chuckle behind a manufactured cough.
Maya turned her dark eyes his way. "This is not funny," she scolded, then in that way she had, managed to let both of her sons know she loved them but was disappointed in their actions.
"We've got to initiate some damage control," she went on. "Now I think Emma's convinced Maddie not to press charges for harassment and assault, but she's still holding firm on banning you from the job site, Clay."
"Fine with me," he said stubbornly. "The more distance between me and Matilda the Hun the better off I'll be."
"Yeah, well, it's not fine with me," Garrett chimed in. "It's a big project—and since you masterminded it, little brother, I need you to help finish it up."
"Why don't we just cut our losses and let her hire a new contractor to finish the work?"
Maya narrowed her eyes at Clay's suggestion. After all these years, she still had the ability to make him feel sheepish.